A combination of the two is a better deterrent than either alone.

The latter gets you used to seeing that there is enforcement of the laws. The former gets you used to never knowing where that enforcement may take place. If all that was allowed was visible patrols, then you'd simply obey the law when you saw, or you got notice by any of the existing phone apps that report sightings, a police car. If all that took place were hidden patrols, you'd not realize the extent that the laws were being enforced. With both, you know they will ticket you but you don't know when they'll catch you. Thus you may, or a reasonable person may, obey the law more often.

Thus you obey the law only when a car is in sight. A very small amount of the time.

You may have such a daredevil attitude towards points on your license and insurance rates, but I think most people wouldn't need the hidden patrols to be ubiquitous for them to be wary that they might get caught and thus should obey the law. The fact that they know they are a good possibility would deter them, at a level well below ubiquitous, but the level needs to be above zero.

Oh my God. What a nutter. Of COURSE a word that has multiple common usage definitions should have one clear definition when it comes to the law, simply because common usage changes over time and the law shouldn't, and the law should not cover the unintended common use cases for the word just because they are in the same entry in the dictionary.

The perfect example is the last definition listed which talks about being "entrapped by expectations". Why should it be illegal for someone to be entrapped by their own expectations just because you want the real action of entrapment by police to be illegal? The only definition that should even be considered in law is definition 3 which deals with action by the police.

Uhhh, ok. Whatever. Laws should always use every possible definition of a word instead of being as precise as possible because Socrates said so. The next time you put out a mouse trap, expect a visit from the police because you were engaging in entrapment of the mouse.

Bad example. The traffic laws I am familiar with all put the instructions of a uniformed police officer above an automated traffic signal. It is assumed the officer is acting in an official capacity to correct a malfunctioning signal, or to manage traffic that the signal is not dealing with.

That means it is actually against the law to ignore the police officer in this situation, and not a violation of law to ignore the signal. A better example would be if the meter maid tells you that it is ok to park in that handicapped space (without a handicapped permit) for just a few minutes so you can run in to buy a six-pack. Another meter maid comes along and tickets you ... because the first one didn't have the authority to override the parking laws.

In 1987 you were probably back home in the basement before the Beeb had covered the event, so you could shout up the stairs to your mother that "I was there, look, I'm ok, can you bring down some meatloaf" when the news came over the telly.

ISPs throttling traffic takes on a whole new dimension with these protocols. They can roast the pigeons after throttling them and feed people who are homeless because of the disaster! Throttling network traffic is a Good Thing! And imagine the visual imagery as they demonstrate what "bottleneck" means as they run the roast pigeon through the meat grinder to make pigeon sausage. Youse can only puts so many pigeons through the grinder at the same time ...

So you'd use the mobile network to contact Facebook to let everyone else know ... umm, wait. What mobile network? And you'd use the shut-off mobile network to check FB to see if your girlfriend had used the same shut-off mobile network to let FB know she was ok.

Here's an idea. Prior to any disaster, plan. Pick someone in a different area that y'all who live in the same area can text with your info, and then y'all can use SMS to let everyone know you're ok. SMS is most likely to survive a disaster, much more than voice or data.

The Internet will be one of the first things to go down in a disaster. The fact that Grandma hasn't told Facebook she's ok because she can't get to Facebook will only scare Grandma's relatives. Same for Grandpa, Pa, Ma, Jr., Missie, etc. This will drive an overload of existing resources as panicky people outside the area try even harder to reach in to find out loved ones status', because my goodness if they haven't said they're ok using this app, they are probably not.

In other words, the existence of this "feature" will become like email -- assumed to be 100% reliable and fast, and if someone hasn't clicked the "I'm OK" button the assumption won't be "the internet is down and they can't, be patient", it will be "they're dead and cannot click a simple button. Panic!"

The person who arranges the transaction doesn't own the car, the person known as "Tesla Corporation" does. It is a transaction between a corporation and a person, not a personal transaction between the salesman and you. When you say a person should be able to sell anything to another person in this context, you are saying that you consider the Tesla Corporation to be a person. (And we are, of course, ignoring the issue that a fleet or other corporate purchase creates, that of the buyer being a corporate "person". Ok, we aren't ignoring it, we just pointed it out.)

I happen to agree, but I just wanted to make it clear that you're basing that statement on a not entirely universal belief about the "personhood" of corporations.

Having to ship it back to get warranty repairs would kind of make warranties useless. I much prefer being able to drive it to the dealer and telling him "it isn't working, fix it." Also to deal with recalls. (This is a lesson I learned after many years of buying commodity PCs. I've had to drive 60 miles to take one back that wasn't working, and I much prefer walking into the local shop and dropping the problem in their lap.)

As for "nonsense", you just need to find a good dealer. They exist. I went to a local Chevy dealer looking for my last car and was offered a good deal on a used one. I told the guy I would think about it and he said ok. I called him two days later and said 'no thanks'. The next day the manager called me to twist my arm -- and I told him in no uncertain terms that when I said 'no' I meant no and I was not going to accept his strong-arm tactics and he'd just cost Chevy and his dealership a long-time Chevy owner. So I went somewhere else.

That somewhere else has been an excellent dealer with no nonsense or drama, no attempts to sell me a new model when take my current one in for service, and they gave me a good price on the one I've bought from them so far. I'll certainly go back for the next one.

Shall I see this as a statement that the corporation called "Tesla" is equivalent to a person?

You must be insane. TrueCar shows me that the base price of a Tesla 2014 S is $70,890, and the "performance" version is $94,390. Kelley Blue Book puts the base price at $68,710 - $73,429. A car for the masses? A car for the lower end of the 1% more like it.

In my town, streets are dug up on a regular basis for all kinds of things except for cable lines. Those are on the poles, which have space.

The days of cable regulation dealt with the cable television product, not the cable internet. Satellite broadband is irrelevant, it's the satellite television that matters. Yes, Dish and Direct are both competitors for cable, especially since installing a system is so simple nowadays. And, IIRC, Charlie Ergen wanted to buy DirectTV a long time ago and was stopped precisely because it would decrease competition too much.

Now you're back at the problem that you cannot force a company to compete in a market they don't want to, and there just isn't enough profit to be made to make competition viable. Governments can grant a second franchise, but first they need someone to ask for it.

Ok, if you want to have twenty companies all limited to 1/20 of the potential bandwidth of the wire, you can claim that the wire will handle the same number of bits. Or you'll have the same terrible situation where ISPs make claims of potential maximum bandwidth that you will never be able to achieve because they've oversold the capacity of the wire.

You could have five cable companies all using the same wire today, except for that problem. It would be trivial in this day of programmable digital converters for each company to send their own authorizations down the wire which allows you to tune only to their channels. The problem is that you'd be limited to 1/5 the number of channels that one company could send. Considering the huge amount of duplication of content required, it would be a huge waste of resources.

I bet it is just wonderful to know that not only is your bandwidth is being limited by your neighbor's use, but that your neighbor isn't even a customer of the same ISP you are. I can hear the howls now: a "centurylink" customer's high usage is hindering a "comcast" customer's access. A great system.

I'm sure. Your example is not a government shutting down a business because they define it to be "terrible" at service. A Walmart that isn't allowed into a city because of zoning issues (the usual reason) hasn't invested money in building and stock and hiring people. An operating company that is being shut down for "terrible service" has.

No, the government should NOT define "terrible" for me. I am free to define it myself. As I pointed out, even the best companies have customers who think the service is terrible, just as they have customers who think it is great.